On Tuesday, her day (shared, as she always reminded me, with every horse in the southern hemisphere about which I was dead jealous during my horsey years), Tim, my big brother and I called in to see her for an hour or so to wish her a very happy birthday, drop off her card and a bunch of flowers. She has recently had surgery on her ankle injured many years ago when I was a child...we had a small incident in her lovely little Gogomobile on Bruny Island after getting into loose gravel on the road. I was fine, but her ankle was broken badly...but that is indeed another story...
Getting the base sorted was a challenge in itself, choosing the right thickness transparency, keeping it clean and free from fingerprints and excess adhesive, that sort of thing. I ended up making the card base in two sections, with a tiny gusset at the top...this to assist in the ability of the acetate to stay folded, and to stand open nicely. Simply scoring and folding the acetate as one does a paper card card didn't work so well with the acetate...it simply wanted to spread open and not stay standing upright...
I was a little exercised as to how to disguise the top overlapped portion of the card as the double thickness and layer of adhesive was a little obvious, even though it was only about .3cm...this was the reason I could not take the card to my sister on her actual day...I finally, after trying several different finishes with ribbon, vellum and silver borders, very simply solved the problem by wrapping a thin silver stretchy cord around the top a couple of times and tying a small bow...this was quite enough to disguise the small visual defect of the construction outcome without the need for adding adhesive.
I tried a few different combinations of embellishments, having a bit of a thing about using bright and zappy juxtapositions of colours and texture lately but these trials all ended in being binned. They simply didn't work with the translucency, to my mind.
In the end I pulled out my flower box and rummaged through and pulled out my remaining fairly neutral flowers made some time back...I used to love making flowers using different techniques but almost never use them myself in a project, these seemed to fit the present occasion so I just got in and got building! (after watching a couple of YT videos to give me strength...
Silver card stock and vellum scraps, a couple of dies and punches, some head scratching over which adhesive to use and where...and here we are...I still think it is waaay over the top, I am sure I will never make another one and I am perfectly sure my sister will (secretly as she is a kind soul), dislike it as much as I! But hey! You only turn eighty once.
I used a small doily die to make the four opaque portions of the card. The first one is on the front as a base for the embellishments, the second is inside the front, covering the adhesive and underside of the front panel. This one carried the "Happy Birthday" sentiment, stamped in grey.
The third carries a layered Happy 80th. sentiment in silver, the fourth is on the outside back cover, and carries our sentiment in silver foil...
I even went on to make an acetate box envelope for this rather large card...it measures 14cm x 20cm, or 5 1/2" x 7 3/4". The envie was a trifle more difficult and I had to be very careful when scoring and folding the material as It wanted to slip out of shape rather, but I beat it into submission eventually and I quite like the effect...
That's it for now,
Di